Be Right or Go

Wrong
A Fundamentally Different Way of Life
Taught by Richard W. Wetherill

By
E. Marie Bothé
The Alpha Publishing House

Copyright © 1996 by
The Alpha Publishing House
PO Box 255, Royersford, PA 19468

All Rights Reserved

 Contents
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................... III
1. THE LAW OF BEHAVIOR ........................................................... 1
2. SUPPOSITIONAL REASONING .................................................... 7
3. HUMANETICS ......................................................................... 11
4. PURPOSE IN LIFE .................................................................... 13
5. SYSTEMS OF REASONING........................................................ 17
6. PRESSURE AND RESISTANCE .................................................. 24
7. THINK, SAY AND DO WHAT IS RIGHT .................................... 27
8. EMOTIONAL AND PHYSICAL HEALTH ..................................... 30
9. BELIEFS .................................................................................. 39
10. MOTIVATION .......................................................................... 43
ABOUT RICHARD W. WETHERILL.................................................. 48
BOOKS BY RICHARD W. WETHERILL ............................................ 51

ii
 Introduction
There is a well-known saying, “As you sow, so shall
you reap.” History tells us that society has been sowing
seeds of dissent throughout the centuries: Rulers dissent to
rule, politicians dissent to be elected, ethnic groups dissent
to control, parents and children dissent for the upper hand,
and virtually everybody dissents to the reality of whatever
is happening by emotionally taking sides politically, so-
cially and spiritually.
In the 1920s the late Richard W. Wetherill was given
insight into a law of behavior existing in nature and impact-
ing people’s daily affairs without their awareness of its ex-
istence. As a result of conforming with that natural law,
Wetherill was able to pursue several successful careers in
his nearly seventy adult years as a teacher, training execu-
tive, author and management consultant.
Wetherill called the law of behavior, the law of absolute
right: Right action gets right results, whereas wrong action
gets wrong results. The law clearly establishes that right
begets right and wrong begets wrong.
Do people know right from wrong? Some people would
argue that nobody can know, because what is right for one
is not right for another. Careful questioning reveals that
many of those argumentative people know more about what
is right than they are willing to admit. When they want to
get their way, their attitude is one of “I know it’s wrong,
but I’m going to do it anyway.”
Twelve-year old smokers do not picture themselves
fifty years later as oldsters suffering painful physical ail-
ments. That is the reality they should consider while they

iii
are young and vigorous, but the seeds of dissent they’d
previously sown in their thoughts triumph over what they
know is right.
For purposes of this writing, there will be no attempt to
name a creator. Suffice it to say that all of what exists was
caused and developed somehow. In its pristine form, it
would seem that whatever exists is too perfect and complex
simply to have happened.
Scriptural writings record eight covenants between the
creator and the human creation. The eighth and last cove-
nant spells out the circumstances under which the covenant
is to be consummated: When the fathers stop blaming the
sons for the fathers’ troubles, and the sons stop blaming the
fathers for the sons’ troubles, the creator’s laws will then be
written in their hearts and minds.
People will conduct their affairs as the creator intended
by thinking, saying and doing only what is right.
I am personally indebted to my friend and mentor Rich-
ard Wetherill for his inspiration, kindness, foresight and his
discovery of the law of absolute right. On the pages that
follow, I will attempt to describe his insights into success-
ful living for my own generation and members of the next
who will use the insights to provide relief for a society that
is crying out for rescue from its torturous wrong results.
On many occasions I have been strengthened by
Wetherill’s observation that no person can long withstand
the continued onslaught of carefully presented truth. It will
finally compel recognition of error. It will finally reconcile
the causes of misunderstanding and correct what is wrong.

iv
 Chapter 1
The Law of Behavior
The evidence is that people exhibit strong tendencies to
try to escape personal accountability for their wrong re-
sults. Seemingly it is the fault of others or bad luck that ac-
counts for society’s problems of physical and substance
abuse, juvenile and adult crime, crises in education, health-
care, disease control and enough other social chaos to fill
volumes.
To top it off, as an escape from the degeneration on
earth, scientists reach out into space to find extraterrestrial
life, politicians try to legislate solutions, spiritual leaders
encourage the belief that their way is the way, and rarely
does anyone feel personally accountable for his/her own
wrong results.
The second law of thermodynamics predicts that the
universe is dying—slowly and inexorably degenerating to-
ward a state of total chaos. Be that as it may, the evidence
is that the societal state of affairs is degenerating toward a
state of total chaos. Why? The answer is found in a book
entitled How to Solve Problems and Prevent Trouble writ-
ten by the late Richard W. Wetherill who was a teacher,
author, training executive and management consultant until
his death in 1989. Basically, Wetherill stated that the rea-
son for the degeneration toward a state of total chaos in
people’s affairs is that their thinking and, therefore, their
attitudes and actions oppose the force of a natural law of
behavior.
During long walks in Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park
while still in his teens, Wetherill pondered the solution to

1
people’s puzzling behavior. Why did bad things happen to
seemingly good people? As a result of his asking, Wetherill
received insights regarding a behavioral law functioning in
people’s affairs. He called it the law of absolute right:
Right action gets right results, whereas wrong action gets
wrong results. That law became the guiding influence for
all his activities during his sixty-year career.
This book, Be Right Or Go Wrong, which describes a
fundamentally different way of life contains a condensed
version of Wetherill’s writings and selected concepts from
his talks on the law of behavior. The information is dis-
cussed from the viewpoint of someone who learned about
the law of behavior from another person rather than from
her own insights on the topic. It is thought that a second-
generation approach might communicate the information
more successfully to those thoughtful people who would
like to “unscrew the inscrutable.”
But what does Wetherill’s previous statement mean—
“people’s thinking and, therefore, their attitudes and actions
oppose natural forces”? Consider his theory:
Whether actual or allegorical, the account of Adam and
Eve in scripture provides the fundamental clue. Disobey the
creator’s instructions, and there are penalties to be paid.
You may wonder how the creator’s instructions are com-
municated to people.
Wetherill’s theory is that communication is first estab-
lished through the force of natural laws, including the law
of behavior. Getting that information acknowledged is vital
to reverse society’s trend toward chaos. As long as people
continue to reason from their judgments of good and evil,
they are unwittingly in contradiction to nature’s law of
right behavior.

2
 Why? Because any person’s judgments of good and evil
are necessarily based on that person’s ability to know what
is good and what is evil. Human opinion could never take
into account all the relevant facts, because those facts are
found in reality. The very act of judging good and evil puts
the mind out of touch with reality. Any conclusions reached
under those circumstances would necessarily be in contra-
diction to reality.
The effect of that contradiction is engulfing society in
an ongoing series of degenerating wrong results, clearly
visible but clearly not understood.
There are no ifs, ands or buts regarding natural laws.
Those laws are immutable and inexorable, unlike people’s
laws that are often violated with seeming impunity unless a
person is caught, found guilty and sentenced by authorities.
With what result? Not enough prisons to house the guilty
and a discouraging number of repeat offenders.
Because Wetherill’s study is based on scientific find-
ings, he made no attempt to define the creator other than to
state that the creator is whoever or whatever is responsible
for what exists: reality. He defined reality as comprised of
natural laws, whatever happens, material and nonmaterial
things.
The truth seekers of the world would be wise to seek
reality for that is where truth is confirmed or denied. A
statement of truth is static, whereas reality keeps changing
so that a truthful statement becomes untrue simply because
the reality changed. Seeking the truth only as a guide to re-
ality is the procedure for knowing the truth that makes one
free.
Inasmuch as natural laws determine the parameters
within which people can function, the absolute right of the
behavioral law is not subject to human definition. To get

3
right results, the law requires people to take action that is
simultaneously logical, expedient and moral. Expressed in
other words, absolutely right action is workable, appropri-
ate and honest; and if any of those three criteria are miss-
ing, there cannot be right results.
That is how the law works; it is not any person’s opin-
ion nor can any person change the law. Overwhelming evi-
dence of society’s noncompliance with nature’s definition
of right action is reported regularly in the daily news.
Unlike laws promulgated by people, natural laws are
self-defining and self-enforcing. Their “teeth” are inherent
in them, and their control is absolute. Thus the mere at-
tempt to violate a natural law triggers a wrong result. For
example, whoever touches a live wire is shocked, burned or
dead. If a saint and a sinner topple off the roof of a tall
building, their descent is controlled by the law of gravita-
tion no matter what their prayers or curses. When they en-
counter a space already occupied, they both get the same
scientific result.
It follows then that nature holds people accountable for
whatever actions they take with regard to the laws of phys-
ics. People accept those laws, and they make prodigious
efforts to understand and apply the laws man has already
“discovered” by seeing their effects in reality. The fact that
discoverers’ names get attached to laws found in nature
shows how people tend to misappropriate credit.
Wetherill, however, makes it clear that people have
mistakenly thought they were free to behave socially in
whatever way they chose, producing a wide range of cha-
otic results. Reports are presented daily decrying the worst,
most newsworthy items, and despite their best efforts to
stem the flow, the experts’ solutions are not reversing soci-
ety’s drift toward total chaos.

4
 There is a solution that would reverse that trend, but a
problem arises because in the past, the solution has been
anathema to most people. The solution requires that people
become fully accountable for their wrong results. They
have to look to themselves for the cause and look to natural
law for the remedy: Think, say and do what is logically and
morally right.
Under Wetherill’s tutelage, his students learned to
abandon their goals and personal motivation and to replace
them with the impersonal motivation of a natural law of
behavior. As a result, they typically enjoy improved health,
financial security and splendid relationships.
Initially people tend to distrust impersonal motivation
because their consistent use of the impersonal motivation of
the laws of physics is taken for granted. They learn to ad-
just their actions to the requirements of those laws without
recognizing that in doing so they have adopted nature’s im-
personal motivation to replace their own motives.
For example, no child can ride a bicycle or roller skate
until he/she adopts the motivation of laws of gravity, cen-
trifugal force, momentum, friction and whatever other laws
are relevant. Do children know about those laws, can they
name them? No, of course, not. They simply adjust their
behavior instinctively to do what they see the other kids
already doing. Suppose children today were surrounded by
people who were doing their best to do only what is right.
What a dynamic force those examples would be to the chil-
dren of the world!
There is, however, a contradictory force blocking any
such effort. In order to explain why thinking goes awry in
the human psyche, Wetherill pointed to the “inherited” dis-
obedience mentioned earlier, causing newborns to start try-
ing to get their own way. As the scripture states it, “They

5
go astray as soon as they be born...” So, based on the uni-
versal wrong results society is experiencing, we can deduce
that people still live under the blight of the original disobe-
dience.
The question then arises, “Why?”

6
 Chapter 2
Suppositional Reasoning
Before presenting Wetherill’s explanation, let me first
introduce a quote from a famous French clergyman that is
appropriate for what follows: “We are not human beings
having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings hav-
ing a human experience.”
Wetherill’s insight into this mystery transports our
thinking from the material world into a nonmaterial realm
where, according to scripture, disobedience originated
among the spiritual entities many people call souls. The
insight supposes that absolute rightness existed in the spiri-
tual realm until one soul deviated by desiring supremacy.
Other souls desiring the same seeming advantage also devi-
ated, destroying equality and causing chaos.
Wetherill made it clear to his students that since there is
no reality to confirm or deny this insight, they should re-
gard it as suppositional, as a tool of thought. They did, and
found that they were better able to understand the behav-
ioral problems they faced in themselves and in the people
around them.
The supposition further postulates a state of simultane-
ity in that realm which precluded any opportunity to study
the cause and resolution of that chaos, so a material world
was created. A realm that, in every aspect, is administrated
by natural laws controlling its material existence with ob-
servable effects that disclose how those laws function in
that realm. Time and space were created so that a counter-
part of the chaos in the spiritual realm could be brought

7
into material existence. Thus the cause-and-effect sequence
of the deviation from absolute right in the spiritual realm
could be expressed, recognized and resolved.
At the right time, physical beings with a desire to ques-
tion their existence inhabited a hospitable planet created to
sustain them in the material world. In accord with a system
not known to those inhabitants, errant souls entered those
physical bodies at birth to be imprisoned there as long as
the body survived. Thus the scene was set for a struggle for
supremacy by the spiritual entity—a struggle that the
physical being felt but could not comprehend.
According to Wetherill’s insight: Starting in infancy,
people’s predilection to wrong behavior is regarded as in-
fluence from an errant soul, trying to instigate the destruc-
tion of its flesh-and-bone prison so that the soul could make
its escape from the material world.
The insight continues that the rebellious souls were to
be continually returned to the material realm until their
wrong influence would be detected, analyzed and overcome
by the physical beings. In addition to the several previous
attempts to reach people’s minds, the creator enabled
Wetherill to detect, analyze and tell people how to over-
come that influence. The formula is that a person has to
make a meaningful decision to think, say and do what is
absolutely right—what is workable, appropriate and honest.
With that changed motivation, the soul’s influence is
replaced by influence from the creator’s law of right behav-
ior, and people no longer give their unintentional support to
the soul’s scheme for escape. The insight also allows for
the possibility that a soul given the right example by its
human jailer might be reformed. The reformed soul could
then be returned somehow to the spiritual realm from
which it had been expelled. Acting on that possible sce-

8
nario enables people to serve a higher purpose in life than
just to continue trying to satisfy their own motives to do,
be, have, get and become.
Wetherill’s insight reveals that the soul in the material
world is not the pure, spiritual entity as is customarily
thought. Its intent is not to guide people toward the perfect
life hereafter. Rather it fosters their inclination toward
wrong thoughts and behavior here and now. That malevo-
lent influence causes people unknowingly to risk their
health and happiness by accepting motivation from the
soul’s desire for supremacy and its scheme to escape the
material world.
However, because right has ascendancy, Wetherill was
told that there would come a time when the nefarious influ-
ence of the soul would be exposed, and its ability to affect
people’s behavior would be ended. Certainly people’s
awareness of the situation would seriously interfere with
the continuance of that unseemly influence. Making people
aware of it is a part of the reason for this book.
Other specific insights into people’s deviant behavior
and techniques for changing it had been given to Wetherill
throughout his childhood and young manhood. Later in life
when he tried to share the information with his business
clients, his publishers and friends, their emotional reactions
effectively silenced him. However, as long as he used his
abilities to solve problems and prevent trouble for individu-
als and corporations, his services were in constant demand.
In the late 1940s at the urging of the publisher of his
business manuals, Wetherill wrote a series of three books
collectively known as The Dynamics of Human Relations
published by D. Van Nostrand Company. The books sold
for many years under the titles of How to Succeed with
People, How to Put Your Ideas Across and How to Get

9
Leadership and Influence. They are no longer in print, but
if there were sufficient demand for them, they could be re-
published.

10
 Chapter 3
Humanetics
I first met Wetherill in 1958 when I attended a week of
daily lectures and training sessions he presented in Sara-
sota, Florida. Afterward I volunteered my services to help
spread the good news of release from the wrong thinking
that causes people unknowingly to defy the law of right be-
havior. In 1959 I moved to the Philadelphia area to work as
Wetherill’s assistant until his death in 1989 when I suc-
ceeded him as Director of the Humanetics Fellowship.
Humanetics is a word Wetherill coined for his study of
behavior when he published the first book on the subject in
1952 entitled Tower of Babel. Over the years, we discov-
ered that the word humanetics had been picked up by other
companies. They sold computer furniture, obesity drugs,
hospital beds, career counseling, and I don’t know what
else. In addition, the general public seemed to dislike the
word humanetics when it was associated with a study of
behavior. For those reasons, Wetherill’s humanetics is now
also called the Right-Action Ethic™. (An ethic is a guiding
system of moral principles and values.)
Since his presentations make frequent reference to the
word humanetics, readers should know why we also use the
term Right-Action Ethic to describe his behavioral study.
Members of the Humanetics Fellowship are his former
students, and they are reasoning from the motivation of na-
ture’s behavioral law to the best of their ability. In so do-
ing, they are enjoying the benefits of right thinking which

11
include a sense of real purpose in life that they think should
be shared with everybody.

12
 Chapter 4
Purpose in Life
In one of his booklets, Wetherill wrote “The fundamen-
tal principle by which a person is motivated controls and
determines his whole pattern of behavior. He has only two
choices: serve self or serve the creator. One leads to con-
tradiction and chaos. The other leads to rationality and
peace.”
Wetherill described our purpose more specifically as
follows: People are here to serve the purpose of the crea-
tor’s plan. They do that by adopting the motivation of the
law of right behavior and dropping their own plans based
on their motives. That change puts an end to people’s frus-
tration, and it puts an end to any further influence from the
soul.
The reason people suffer so much frustration is that
they keep trying to satisfy their motives, which is impossi-
ble in a universe entirely controlled by natural laws. In ef-
fect, they unknowingly pit their likes and dislikes against
the real world. Because people have not known about their
higher purpose under the creator’s plan—mentor to the
soul—they act on motives to get their own way. Those per-
sonal motives have been causing them to depart this life
without ever having known of the higher purpose for which
they were created.
For example, people who have smoked tobacco and/or
other plants for many years may have so severely harmed
their respiratory and circulatory systems that the damage is
irreparable. The abusive consumption of alcohol or other

13
addictive substances may have similarly destroyed the
functioning of organs needed to sustain the body’s life
force. However, if the thinking changes soon enough, the
body has great recuperative power, and no matter what the
outcome, it is to everybody’s improved quality of life to
think, say and do what is right.
When the situations of life seemed somewhat perplex-
ing, Wetherill reminded his students, “We are here to take
right action.” They found those words to be stabilizing as
well as clarifying, and the statement reminded them of their
voluntary choice to think, say and do what is right.
When people learn that they have unknowingly ac-
cepted the influence of an errant soul and have been ex-
pressing its superior, rebellious attitude as their own, they
know the origin of their wrong behavior. Soul-level influ-
ence picked up by the body causes people to plan to get
their way, whatever their way might be—good or evil. In
that state they form personal motives making them behave
in ways that damage relationships and careers, cause acci-
dents and poor health. That wrong influence also explains
the prevalence of antisocial behavior and why law breakers
tend to feel justified and defensive of their crimes.
The suppositional theory of the soul’s wrong influence
further explains why the reform programs for delinquent
children and criminal adults fail to accomplish their goals.
In addition, no matter what funds are provided to resolve
society’s health and welfare problems, they remain unre-
solved. The reason the programs and funding for those pro-
jects are largely ineffectual is that such problems are not
being addressed at their fundamental, causative level.
Lawbreakers of all ages are not being taught about their
innate drive toward wrong action and how that drive influ-
ences what they think, say and do. More important, they are

14
not taught what they could do to suspend that influence and
release the wrong thinking that would stop their wrong be-
havior. If that fundamental approach were widely imple-
mented, penitentiaries would become places for penitence,
as the word suggests, rather than places for incarceration
and punishment. The inmates who cooperated would then
be returned to society to begin a fundamentally different
way of life.
Society’s degeneration toward chaos will cease when
people learn to acknowledge the safety and protection of
the behavioral law just as they acknowledge the safety and
protection of the laws of physics. People know that gravity
protects them from flying off into space. At an early age,
they learn to adjust their behavior to the gravitational law
and to function safely under its requirements. With the
same attitude, society’s behavioral chaos would be resolved
as people adjusted their social behavior to the law of abso-
lute right—just because it is right to be right and wrong to
be wrong.
At present, religions are fragmented over definitions of
right and wrong behavior based on dogmas and doctrines
that were promulgated by people who had reasoned from
good and evil. Political parties are fragmented by the same
flawed approach. Ordinary people simply struggle to get
their own way—mostly subconsciously. Sooner or later,
they are frustrated by the wrong results of their dealings
with family members, working associates, friends and even
strangers, all of whom are similarly acting on motives to
get their way.
People who are mature enough to have learned about
natural laws know that such laws require obedience. They
know that people suffer unwanted results even for an inad-
vertent attempt to disobey what natural law decrees. They

15
know “thou shalt not” attempt to disobey the laws of elec-
tricity and chemistry. A purpose of this book is to direct
attention to the behavioral law that is just as unyielding:
Only right action can get right results.
If people are weary of trying to resolve their wrong re-
sults by their own efforts, this is the age when they can
learn to obey the law of absolute right and escape the blight
of past disobedience. They can learn to think, say and do
what is right as defined by natural law—not human ideas of
good and evil. They can put an end to the chaos that wreaks
havoc in people’s lives because they know that their wrong
results are caused by their own wrong thinking. In the
process of “righting” their thinking, people become ac-
countable, rational and productive, and they learn about
two systems of reasoning.

16
 Chapter 5
Systems of Reasoning
In his lectures, Wetherill described two systems of rea-
soning. The system in common usage by society he called
the relative system of reasoning. In that system people be-
have in accord with the motives they form to get what they
want and avoid what they don’t want. In that system they
learn about natural laws and phenomena, various profes-
sions and disciplines and about good and evil. But the in-
formation gets distorted by filtering through a mental
screen of personal motives based on people’s particular de-
sires—no matter how good or evil those desires might be.
The mental screen is made up of the conscious premises
people use to conduct their affairs along with the countless
subconscious premises they accumulate whenever they re-
act emotionally to whatever did or did not happen.
People recognize that the mere attempt to violate the
laws of physics causes an injury of some sort: a cut, burn,
broken bone or death. Attempting to violate the law of be-
havior also causes an unseen, physical injury. Wetherill
taught that whenever a wrong thought is formed or ac-
cepted from another source, the thought causes injury to the
database in a person’s brain.
The injury is to the neural connections that link brain
cells together to form paths of thought. When the thought is
right, it is logical. Because it is logical, the connections be-
tween the brain cells release when the action is completed.
The cells then are free to reconnect and carry other
thoughts. When the thought is wrong, it is illogical. Be-

17
cause it is illogical, the action cannot be completed, and
those neural connections linking the brain cells do not re-
lease. The wrong thought gets stuck in a fixed, mental cir-
cuit.
Wetherill defined those fixed, mental circuits as distor-
tions of logic. Whenever a person’s thinking goes to a par-
ticular area, the distortions held there become premises in
his/her conclusions. In addition, each distorted concept be-
comes the basis for additional wrong thoughts that are also
stored in the brain. The distortions are expressed in sen-
tences that state the command and the circumstance, stated
or implied, under which it will be carried out. Wetherill
called those sentences command phrases.
So whenever a person reacts emotionally and decides
“I’m entitled to get what I want,” that distortion of logic is
input for his/her database. The action cannot be completed,
so the thought gets stuck. Over a period of time, many
command phrases are formed based on that distortion such
as “If they don’t give me what I want, I’ll make a fuss” or
“Someday I’ll get back at them for the way they treat me
now” or “When I cry, she gives me my way.”
The two terms, distortions of logic and command
phrases, are referred to somewhat interchangeably in the
Right-Action Ethic. The distortion is the impacted, wrong
thought and the command phrase is its wording. They both
represent impacted thoughts that cause automated behavior.
The Right-Action Ethic is liberating when it is fully
comprehended. It diagnoses the cause of people’s problems
and trouble and presents the remedy: With an intent to do
what is right, a person’s recognition of wrong thinking trig-
gers its release. That is a description of the command
phrase technique taught by Wetherill. The technique en-
ables people to bring wrong thinking from subconscious

18
levels to conscious attention. A person’s intent to release
the command phrase is logical action, and it can be com-
pleted. The neural connections release, and the wrong
thought drops from his/her memory.
The persons who agree with the idea that they are “enti-
tled to what they want” deprive themselves of the opportu-
nity to learn how their lives would be transformed if that
distortion of logic were released by a decision to think, say
and do what is right.
Be assured, there are no good distortions of logic or
command phrases, no matter what the wording. They are
people’s judgments of reality, and as such distortions are
dangerously misleading. Anybody’s judgments could be
regarded as a reflection of the soul’s wrong attitude that
should be discarded. What person is qualified to judge real-
ity’s laws, happenings and things?
The second system of reasoning, presently in uncom-
mon usage by society, Wetherill called the absolute system.
It is based on the principles of right action in which people
reason from natural laws and phenomena, professions and
disciplines and reality. Their actions and attitudes do not
filter through a mental screen of personal motives but, in-
stead, reflect an ongoing intent to respond to the needs of
reality by doing what is right.
At present, there are not many people who are reason-
ing in the absolute system. It is a purpose of this writing to
acquaint readers with the disadvantages of the relative sys-
tem in contrast with the benefits of reasoning in the abso-
lute system. Those benefits are too extensive to state, but
here is a partial list:
1. A stress-free life in which situations get resolved
and are not problems
2. Meaningful relationships

19
 3. Contact with reality where knowledge of the truth
resides
4. An even-tempered calm resulting from contact with
reality
5. Vocational opportunities that spontaneously de-
velop
6. Mental acuity and an ability to cut to fundamentals
There are many more specific benefits for individuals
who recognize that their true path in life is found when they
respond to whatever is happening by doing what is right.
They see the flaw in trying to plan their work and work
their plan. Instead, they let reality’s plan control their ac-
tivities, knowing they are deluded if they think they can
capture that control for themselves.
From ancient times, leaders of thought have tried to
serve the best interests of society by forming political, so-
cial and economic systems. They conceived monarchies,
dictatorships and democratic governments; capitalistic,
communistic and socialistic systems; self-regulating and
planned economies to name some of the best known. Are
the political, social or economic systems being practiced
today getting truly right results? Some systems are less op-
pressive or less threatening, perhaps, but are they producing
even a microcosm of a rational society?
The absolute system of reasoning produces rational
people who do not use conflict to get their way, do not take
a stand, do not give offense, invite offense nor take offense.
They are people who are secure in the knowledge of what
life expects from them: take and support right action; with-
draw support from wrong action.
In the United States political parties perniciously attack
their opponents’ programs and private lives prior to elec-
tion day. After the voting, whatever party is elected tries to

20
get the opponents’ support for the legislative programs the
opposition had previously attacked. Their bid for support
tends to generate more contention, all of which is detrimen-
tal to proper government for the electorate. That is not ra-
tional behavior; although it does reflect relative-system tit
for tat.
Nature’s absolute system of reasoning eliminates all the
conflict procedures that drive people apart. It lets them find
right decisions in the facts that fill the needs of unfolding
reality moment by moment. No longer do people have to
cope with the chaotic results of reasoning from personal
motives. Any hint of an emotional reaction calls attention
to itself as a mistake, the result of wrong thinking. If the
person displaying the emotion does not catch it, he/she can
be told without a fuss.
Wetherill taught that the relative system is so named
because it consists of relative values. There are behaviors
and situations that are considered good, better, best as well
as bad, worse, worst. In that system people form and reason
from motives, and their reactions shift back and forth be-
tween opposite attitudes. As situations seem to demand,
they are generous or stingy, happy or sad, gregarious or
shy, honest or dishonest according to whichever attitude
seems to be most effective in getting them what they
want—relatively speaking.
Because of the shifting social values making up the
relative system, people often appear to be untrustworthy,
two-faced and sneaky. Wetherill pointed out that the flaw is
not in the people themselves; the flaw is in the system of
reasoning they use. It is the relative system that makes
them appear untrustworthy, two-faced and sneaky. As soon
as those same people adopt the absolute system of right re-
sponses, they appear rational, dependable and straight for-

21
ward. Those social values are displayed by absolute-system
thinkers because they are the values that are inherently part
of that system.
When people reason in the absolute system, strangers
cease to be strangers, and there is no one to fear. Every-
body reasons from one unbending standard: think, say and
do what is logically and morally right. People get coopera-
tion and appropriate action from one another that attend to
the needs of their daily lives at their places of employment
or at school and at home.
Of course, people make mistakes while switching to the
absolute system, but mistakes in that situation are consid-
ered correctable and something to teach a lesson. Mistakes
made by relative-system thinkers are commonly regarded
as detrimental because, in the relative system, mistakes get
critical attention and attract insulting put downs. That
causes people to hide, deny or vigorously defend their mis-
takes, making them noncorrectable and, therefore, destined
to occur again and again.
Despite the best efforts of the Founding Fathers of de-
mocracy, of socialism and communism and of past and pre-
sent religious movements, society still could not be re-
garded as rational and moral. On a scale from 1 to 10, how
close to fifty points could you score yourself on the follow-
ing five items:
1. My attitude toward the people I live with is logical
and moral.
2. I willingly support my employment with an honest
day’s work.
3. I am accountable for my mistakes and want to be
told about them.
4. I stay calm and rational when something goes
wrong.

22
5. I try to stay in touch with reality during all my wak-
ing moments.

23
 Chapter 6
Pressure and Resistance
One subject Wetherill emphasized was the mistake
people make when, for any reason, they put pressure on one
another. Pressure can be physical contact such as a smack
or a shove, but that is not the kind of pressure under discus-
sion. The really destructive pressure is applied verbally or
applied more subtly with some sort of body language such
as raised eyebrows, shrugs, frowns, a grimace or knowing
smile.
The usual reaction to pressure is one of resistance
which is just counterpressure, and together those are the
factors that give rise to people’s interpersonal conflicts.
Pressure and resistance are always expressed with emotion,
however slight or eruptive. The emotion indicates that peo-
ple are reasoning from distortions of logic that are out of
touch with reality. Because distortions are formed under
emotion, whenever they become premises in people’s con-
clusions, the original emotion is also included. You may
have heard people say, “I don’t know why I’m so upset” or
“I wish I knew why I get so ticked off when I’m contra-
dicted.” The Right-Action Ethic explains why: distortions
of logic used as premises.
Ordinarily people resent being told they are being in-
sane in conducting their affairs, but what better definition
have we for insanity than “being out of touch with reality”?
The condition might seem to be momentary, but all of soci-
ety’s big and little wrong results are caused under the pres-
sure of wrong thinking that is out of touch with reality.

24
 Wetherill thought it strange that some experts consid-
ered certain crimes to be rational while other crimes were
thought to be premeditated and criminally insane. He
taught that all wrong action is caused by thinking that is out
of touch with reality, and the degree of the person’s insan-
ity depends on the wording of the command phrases in-
cluded in the decision to act.
For example, the command phrase might be “If I get
pushed too hard, I’ll leave,” whereas in the same situation,
it might be “If I get pushed too hard, I’ll settle things with
my gun.”
In a certain sense, all wrong action could also be con-
sidered premeditated because initially it takes a wrong
thought to cause wrong action. After that, the action is
compulsively carried out whenever the situation relates to
the subject of the distortion of logic. It is the unrecognized
commands from fixed, wrong thoughts that cause people’s
antisocial behavior. They should stop looking for excuses
and, instead, do the right thing: identify and drop command
phrases.
Wetherill said that people have to learn that every
wrong thought that passes through their minds gets lodged
there even when the thought later is consciously changed.
For example, someone who judges a friend is stupid may
later consciously admit that the friend is not stupid. But the
judgment of the friend’s stupidity remains in neural con-
nections on the subconscious level. In all situations when
the friend’s intelligence is in question, the subconscious
judgment of his/her stupidity will color whatever is said or
done.
The truth is that people’s use of pressure is just one of
the ways they try to motivate and manipulate one another.
The creator has already provided motivation for people and

25
made it obligatory through the operation of natural laws.
That explains why conforming with natural laws results in
success and disregarding them results in failure.
Wetherill referred to people’s trying to get their way
and manipulate others in contradiction to nature’s behav-
ioral law as a pattern of “self-godification.” He found that
people shrank from considering that idea because they had
no conscious awareness of any such effort on their part. It
took hours of patient explanation to enable them to connect
with the reality of that term. It also then became an easy
way for Wetherill’s trainees to remind one another when-
ever their personal authority surfaced.
He referred again to the soul-level influence on peo-
ple’s thinking as the source of self-godification patterns.
People mistakenly accept the soul’s delusion of superiority
and rebellious attitude as their own, and that mistake causes
them to form judgments, making them compete for su-
premacy and rebel over whatever is happening.
Natural law states that people have to take right action,
or they will have problems and trouble. The present state of
daily affairs portrays a society faced with problems and
trouble everywhere on earth. All that grief occurs because
people do not surrender to the law of absolute right and
base their decisions on reality’s needs rather than on what
they judge are their needs.
Instead of accepting pressure from the soul to think, say
and do what is wrong, people can be present minded and
connect what they think, say and do with reality. They can
establish their impersonal relationship with the law of be-
havior as they presently interact with the laws of gravity,
motion, friction and so on.

26
 Chapter 7
Think, Say and Do What Is Right
The law of absolute right stipulates that people think,
say and do what is logically and morally right, or they will
incur wrong, unwanted results. That concept is so profound
and inclusive that Wetherill’s students took years to com-
prehend its many sidelights and implications. They report
that insights still come to mind as the events of life unfold.
Centuries ago someone is purported to have asked,
“Am I my brother’s keeper?” with the inference that he was
not. Readers might consider suppositionally that as the
soul’s keeper, a person could block the soul’s wrong influ-
ence with faithful intent to think, say and do only what is
right. That action would, perhaps, enable the soul to stop
trying to be supreme and to stop rebelling. Simultaneously
it would also interrupt society’s drift toward total behav-
ioral chaos.
Everybody’s obedience to all the natural laws of the
material world would prevent any expressions of wrong-
ness. That would mean a life free from conflict caused by
pressure and resistance. That would mean individual and
world peace as people stopped fighting to get the advan-
tage. That would mean true equality for all disparate
groups. That would mean amnesty for past wrong action.
That would also mean the eventual irrelevancy of manmade
laws to control people’s behavior and the costly legal sys-
tems for trying to enforce those laws.
The description of a society reasoning exclusively from
what is logically and morally right strikes fear into the

27
hearts of people who are being enriched by coping with so-
ciety’s wrong results. Their fearful reactions (usually ex-
pressed in anger) indicate resistance, but we cannot fault
them if they lack knowledge of the absolute system of rea-
soning. In that system there is always some right action to
take that satisfies the demands of every situation. Over
time, therefore, problem situations get resolved, including
poverty, unemployment and career changes by the natural
expedient of thinking, saying and doing what is right.
Natural law makes it clear that right action cannot pro-
duce wrong results. The end of one vocational pursuit
makes possible the start of another. People with no aches or
pains need no painkillers, but they do have needs to be sat-
isfied in various other areas. In a rational society, no funds
would have to be spent on checking, catching and convict-
ing wrong doers. The several trillions of our burdensome
national debt could be reduced to the vanishing point with
just those savings.
Wetherill used to say that we are all in trouble as long
as one person still has one distortion of logic, so presuma-
bly there is a period of universal adjustment.
Some persons I have talked with tell me that changing
the wrong behavior of the masses looms as an insuperable
task. I must admit that adopting the intent to think, say and
do only what is logically and morally right was not accom-
plished overnight by Wetherill’s students. But the “right-
ing” of the human race is fundamentally not a people task.
It has a higher power driving and supporting it that ensures
its inevitable success; though nobody knows when that will
happen.
Leaders of thought have a history of initial rejection of
a newly discovered natural law, especially when the law
contradicts their ex cathedra pronouncements. It is reported

28
that in the 17th century the church fathers stubbornly re-
fused Galileo’s urgings to look through his telescope. Ap-
parently they did not want to have their beliefs about the
position of the earth in the solar system to be proved
wrong. The fixed, mental circuits containing their self-
godified attitude kept them from checking their beliefs with
reality.
That problem attitude still exists; Wetherill certainly
encountered it throughout his career with regard to hu-
manetics. The attitude of the professionals in all the behav-
ioral fields boiled down to, ‘‘What could he tell us?” In the
meantime, society’s wrong results kept growing at an ac-
celerating pace.
Without a change of motivation, even now, no end of
wrong results seems to be in sight. Current news items de-
scribe unspeakable atrocities that people intentionally in-
flict on one another. Then there are the unintentional trage-
dies resulting from people’s not learning the lessons of
fires, floods, windstorms, stray bullets, bombs and vehicu-
lar accidents.
Those of us who apply The Right-Action Ethic are
heartened to read about mainstream, medical professionals
who are addressing the fact that a person’s thinking is a vi-
tal factor of that person’s state of emotional and physical
health.

29
 Chapter 8
Emotional and Physical Health
Articles frequently appear in newspapers and maga-
zines describing faith-healing sessions, meditation exer-
cises, herbal and food therapies, acupuncture and other pro-
cedures as alternatives to the use of drugs and surgery to
cope with bodily ills.
Wetherill said that basic to people’s emotional and
physical good health is their ability to think, say and do
whatever is truly right. People who adopt that motivation
are noticeably different in their behavior patterns and in
their need for medical attention from those who think, say
and do what their motives dictate.
Wetherill taught that attention is the stuff of life. Peo-
ple’s attention is something they can provide or withhold,
depending on how their motives make them react to what-
ever is happening. He went on to describe attention as a
stream of thought that he likened to a stream of water com-
ing from a garden hose. Just as the stream from the garden
hose can be aimed in a specific direction, people’s attention
can also be aimed in either of two basic directions. It can be
aimed in a constructive, right way to the reality of their
daily situations, or it can be aimed in a destructive, wrong
way to their judgments of those same situations.
Attention that is directed to reality delivers right results
in the form of guidance and insights. Attention that is di-
rected to fantasies, half-truths, downright lies, judgments
and other unrealistic thoughts delivers wrong results in the
form of problems and trouble.

30
 As suggested in Chapter II, because of an inborn,
wrong influence, people’s attention gets pointed in a wrong
direction at birth. Babies arrive with no knowledge of
where they are or what to do. They become emotional and
want attention. To get it they cry, hold their breath, flail
their arms and legs, or they may coo, smile and extend their
arms to be held.
Those are not critical comments about babies’ behavior.
It is an attempt to describe how people get started in a
wrong direction, reacting in frustration and hurt if attention
is desired but is withheld. When children and adults change
the direction of their attention from their motives to what-
ever is happening so they can respond to it rightly, all of
life takes on a new dimension.
Remember that every wrong thought passing through
the mind is captured in neural connections and is held in
fixed, mental circuits. Those judgments of reality are in-
cluded with other premises, corrupting people’s conclu-
sions so that they get wrong results. The prevalence of so-
ciety’s past and present difficulties provides evidence that it
has happened to everybody born into this life.
Fifty years ago when Wetherill first told an audience
that nobody had to fight for his rights, bedlam broke out. At
that time, obviously there was universal, fixed thinking that
contradicted his statement. The truth is that people can give
up their rights, and, in effect, they can turn the other cheek.
Beyond that, the fact is that people’s rights reside in na-
ture’s laws, and those rights are available to the people who
conform with them. When they do, those who are willing to
turn the other cheek are never called on to do so. It is true
that people have the freedom to be wrong, but nature de-
crees that it is never right to be wrong.

31
 Wetherill often referred to the law of absolute right as
the super-natural law because conforming with it is a re-
quirement of every other natural law: Take right action re-
garding every natural law, and if you do not, you will incur
wrong, unwanted results.
Because people do not realize that they must carefully
avoid wrong thoughts, they indulge in emotional reactions.
In effect, they program themselves with command phrases
that contradict and override the natural programming that
would keep them healthy and strong.
A few weeks after I had attended Wetherill’s lectures in
1958, I developed an arthritic joint in my left thumb. It was
red, swollen and painful. I telephoned a friend I had met at
the lectures, and what follows is part of our conversation:
“Edie, what areas did the Wetherills say caused painful,
swollen joints?
“The areas they mentioned were domination and self-
pity.
“Wow! Half the pain has already gone from my thumb.
I can see how my distortions of logic in those two areas are
causing my problem. When we finish our conversation, I’m
going to bring up command phrases on those topics.
Thanks for the reminder.”
The situation was that I’d had two fifteen-year-old
nieces visiting. I’d felt responsible for them but wanted
them to like me, so I’d had to apply discipline carefully. “I
had to have an iron hand in a velvet glove,” I thought. Also
“I can’t let them get out from under my thumb” (especially
at the beach with teenage boys hanging around). There
were several additional command phrases demanding that I
dominate whatever happened to keep things under what I
had erroneously judged was my control.

32
 At the same time, “I felt pretty sorry for myself” having
to spend my days cooking, shopping, chaperoning, doing
laundry and acting as chauffeur for the visitors and my own
three younger children. The command phrases also re-
vealed that I had judged that many of my single-parenting
duties gave me a pain.
After bringing up command phrases, over a period of a
few weeks my left thumb regained its original size and
shape without pain or stiffness. In subsequent years when-
ever I felt pain in any joint, I picked up command phrases
about wanting to dominate (play God) while also feeling
sorry for myself. The technique always worked, and on dif-
ferent occasions, the pain disappeared from my knees, fin-
gers, shoulders and elbows. I have not experienced those
symptoms for several years, so I think the distortions in
those areas may have all been released.
Due to the application of the Right-Action Ethic, the
improvement in my emotional and physical health enables
me to spend forty to fifty hours a week at my desk despite
my senior-citizen status. I don’t feel any need for a vaca-
tion to clear the cobwebs or to unwind. There are so many
wrong, tragic results occurring in society that I am ener-
gized to let people know how those wrong results can be
resolved and prevented.
Scripture enjoins us to judge not, that we be not judged.
Those are not just words from the “good book.” They are
prophetic words. Wetherill cautioned us to refrain from
judging people or any other aspect of reality. “Judgments,”
he warned, “are the product of people’s emotional reac-
tions, and they are never factually correct because judg-
ments do not reflect reality. Rather, they are self-conceived
beliefs and are, therefore, apart from reality. Every such

33
judgment becomes the command phrase of a distortion of
logic, impairing people’s emotional and physical health.”
For example, have you ever judged life to be unfair?
Many people have, including some past Presidents of our
country. When analyzed as Wetherill did, a judgment that
life is not fair is recognized as a criticism of the creator’s
law. Why? The law says that what seems unfair is, in fact,
the result of wrong action. It is people who take the action
that gets the unwanted result, no matter how innocent they
may seem. In the long-term, it is people’s critical judg-
ments that are especially damaging to their emotional and
physical health.
On the other hand, it is understandable that people who
do not know about the law of absolute right would not
know that they are accountable for whatever happens to
them. It may appear to uninformed persons that other peo-
ple and bad luck account for their wrong results. Natural
laws, however, hold people accountable for the results they
get when they try to do what does not conform with those
laws. When all the details of a seemingly unfair, wrong re-
sult become known, an element of illogic, inappropriate-
ness or dishonesty can always be detected. If you are still
skeptical, reread the pages of Chapter 1. They explain how
people injure themselves and destroy their lives by trying to
violate nature’s inviolable laws, including the law of be-
havior.
Wetherill pointed to the vast difference between a per-
son’s perception of reality and a judgment formed about
that reality. By judging, people destroy the wholeness of
what is judged to no real purpose. They form judgments in
anticipation, before the fact; and they form judgments by
reacting, after the fact. An anticipation is not real because

34
whatever is anticipated has not yet happened. How could
the anticipated judgment be in touch with reality?
A four-year-old may judge, “I can’t wait to go to
school” or “I know I’ll hate going to school.” The child
might make both judgments under different circumstances
and then be sentenced to experience the contradictory emo-
tions those anticipated thoughts suggest.
Judgments after the fact are more prevalent because
people mostly reason from their likes and dislikes. They
judge whatever happens according to those criteria. Con-
sider the confused reactions of newborns or of children be-
ing punished or teenagers under peer pressure to do drugs
or adults with responsibilities who lose their jobs. During
those emotional situations, they rapidly run hundreds of
judgments through their minds which are stored there to
cause later wrong decisions and wrong results.
While listening to Wetherill’s description of how peo-
ple form judgments by reacting to reality, it became clear to
his trainees that forming judgments is not a sometime activ-
ity. Judging reality goes on virtually all the time. People
judge whether they like or dislike the weather, political par-
ties, food, clothing, pets, jobs, friends, family members and
so on. The process is so universal it has not drawn attention
to itself for proper analysis.
In September 1996 an article in a national magazine
stated, “We now know that anything—whether a drug, war
experience or a talking therapy—changes the way nerve
cells talk to each other.” The basic point of such articles is
that chemical neurotransmitters enable the nerve impulse
(thought) to jump or not to jump the synapse (the gap be-
tween nerve cells) at the axon terminal where the nerve im-
pulse (thought) is received.

35
 In the early 1950s, Wetherill explained that when peo-
ple react negatively to reality in any of its forms, emotion
arises that puts chemicals in the blood stream that under
right conditions would not be there. (In more recent years,
medical research supported that theory.) The emotion is
called by many names: frustration, anger, rebellion, jeal-
ousy and so on. It results from the person’s resistance to
his/her accepting whatever reality is delivering.
Stated differently, a person mentally departs from real-
ity by forming judgments of it. Those judgments butt up
against the reality of “what is” and are retained in memory
as distortions of logic. Researchers would be wise to study
the mysterious cause for the chemical imbalance in the
brain. Instead they try to counteract the wrong chemicals or
supply the right chemicals in dealing with mental disorders.
They could investigate the causative, wrong thinking as the
Right-Action Ethic suggests.
Living in accord with all the laws of nature, fully obe-
dient to them, allows the body’s natural drug factory to
supply whatever chemicals are needed for the healthy, right
performance of people’s physiological systems. The inborn
programming computes on right data people input when
they are in touch with reality, and it is thrown into chaos
when assaulted with wrong data based on their judgments.
On many occasions, Wetherill said he was grateful that
electronic computers had been invented in his lifetime. The
way computers process data provided a meaningful com-
parison to how human computers process data. One trench-
ant similarity is “garbage in, garbage out.” Wrong data en-
tered into the databases of either, produce wrong conclu-
sions.
Garbage output from electronic computers is a total
waste of time, resources and money, so a lot of time and

36
attention is devoted to working out “bugs” and inputting
correct data. In a commercial application, too many wrong
conclusions, resulting from flawed input, will destroy the
life of a project. Similarly, too many wrong conclusions,
resulting from trying to satisfy personal motives, will de-
stroy a person’s emotional and physical health.
Organizations utilize computers to calculate right deci-
sions based on facts rather than on people’s opinions or
educated guesses. That is the attitude people should adopt
to replace the haphazard, distorted data they have been in-
putting the computer between their ears. From early life
that database has been getting input from judgments, lies
and fantasies—all garbage, spitting out garbage, causing
wrong results.
You surely have heard someone say, “I’m sick and tired
of _____.” Readers can fill in the blank with as many dif-
ferent items as come to mind. Here are a few suggestions:
“waiting for people,” “going to work,” “cleaning,” “mow-
ing grass,” “trying to get ahead,” and “listening to people
complain.” The commands to be “sick and tired” in various
circumstances become instructions from the brain to the
body. They cause various malfunctions that people suffer
from: headaches, pains, fatigue, sleepiness, lack of energy
and, in the long-term, other more serious ailments.
Wetherill also hypothesized that, over time, people’s
emotional reactions caused by wrong motivation mature
into physical ailments with disagreeable symptoms. What-
ever the procedures, medical or nonmedical, that people use
to relieve those symptoms may be helpful, but treatment of
the basic cause of the ailment is ignored. The Right-Action
Ethic enables people to give attention to the basic cause of
ailments.

37
 Years ago Wetherill and members of his study group
prepared a book of over a thousand categories and more
than ten thousand command phrases entitled Dictionary of
Typical Command Phrases. Anybody can use this book as a
reference when looking for the cause of a specific physical
or emotional problem.
An attractive part of releasing command phrases and
adopting impersonal motivation is that there is no monetary
cost involved. Even the time needed to “unthink” wrong
thoughts is less than the time formerly spent agreeing with
them and adding more command phrases.

38
 Chapter 9
Beliefs
A person has to receive the information of Wetherill’s
discovery of a behavioral law honestly in order to apply it
and enjoy its benefits. In the past many people plagiarized
his writings and presented the information as their own.
Since one ingredient of right action is honesty, it becomes
obvious that one cannot plagiarize concepts of right and get
a right result. Any belief to the contrary discloses a serious
lack of understanding.
One of the points Wetherill emphasized to his students
is that they should not believe information they heard from
him or from anybody. Rather they should let the informa-
tion direct their attention to the reality being described and
reason from that. Reality must be the focal point for atten-
tion and not the person describing it.
Wetherill suggested that his trainees adopt these three
steps of learning:
1. Receive the information
2. Look at the reality it describes
3. Study the implications of that reality.
Those steps are important for students in school, work-
ers being given instruction and all other persons who have
reason to learn anything. In certain situations, people take
those three steps without their awareness of having done so.
Whether trivial or important, any subject makes a good
example. Suppose someone remarks, “It’s two o’clock.” A
listener consults a clock to check the reality, then considers
the implication that he/she should hurry to keep an ap-

39
pointment. Without that simple routine, people could not
successfully manage the affairs of their lives.
Sometimes these steps relate to attractive information.
For example, anyone might welcome the news that he/she
had inherited a relative’s estate, refer to the reality that the
relative had been wealthy and the implication of a greatly
improved financial condition. Little of that information
would cause resistance.
Sometimes these steps bring a person information that
seems entirely unattractive. Anyone might dislike being
told that he/she had made a mistake that was causing seri-
ous trouble. People frequently evade such news, disregard
the reality to which it points and thereby miss its implica-
tions. Those are the wrong steps people take that make it
almost impossible for them to learn how to correct their
mistakes and how to stop making them.
Disregarding reality is a dangerous practice of the rela-
tive system of reasoning. A person’s desire to get across the
street might cause him/her to ignore the reality of an ap-
proaching car and, therefore, not perceive the implication
of possible injury or death.
The likelihood that people will disregard reality seems
to be greatest when the risk involved seems remote. There
are many millions of people who are disregarding the risk
of lung cancer, heart disease and other ailments by ignoring
the reality of the effects of smoking. Since that reality is
ignored, it cannot communicate the implication of suffering
and death many years later from smoking. When people
make that discovery, they can deal with causes by bringing
up and releasing the command phrases that had motivated
them to smoke.
Obviously people are not born with the desire to smoke.
It is their command phrases that create that desire for them.

40
Discarding the command phrases gets rid of the desire to
smoke. The same information applies to many more antiso-
cial and antihealth problems: find the causes in wrong
thinking and “unthink” them.
No one is asked to believe any of the information in this
book even when it seems to be correct. Readers are asked
to look to the reality that is being described and reason
from that to the implications. To deal with a problem, ask
inside your mind for the wrong thinking causing it. Be hon-
est and frank with yourself while you dredge up memories
of the emotional thinking you did in childhood. Bring the
sentences to consciousness, and recognize them for what
they are: judgments out of touch with reality. That is what
releases them from their fixed, mental circuits.
Dropping wrong thoughts is a cleansing, mental proc-
ess. Wetherill referred to it as the metanoia (change of the
mind) or repentance mentioned in scripture. When people
feel sorry for their misdeeds, that does not constitute repen-
tance. It takes a change of mind to repent so that the wrong
action stops. To do that, people have to release the com-
mand phrases causing it.
Using pencil and paper makes the technique of bringing
up command phrases easier to apply in the beginning.
These days, people can use their computers and then study
the printout for the unrealistic thoughts that deviate from
what is factual and right. Any flaw detected in the sen-
tences will serve to release them. Wetherill’s books discuss
techniques for correcting distortions in greater detail.
Give your attention to reality—whatever is happening,
natural laws and things—with the intent to respond by do-
ing what is right. Making that change releases untold num-
bers of command phrases on numerous topics. That is how
people can surrender what has appeared to be their control

41
and have it replaced with the natural control that exists in
the laws of life.

42
 Chapter 10
Motivation
Wetherill helped his students to analyze their life ex-
periences in a fundamentally different way. He made them
aware of their personal plans to get advantages for them-
selves and their families, especially their children.
In the relative system of personal motives, that kind of
behavior is encouraged and applauded. In the absolute sys-
tem of right for right’s sake, attention is directed to action
that meets the requirements of reality in people’s daily
lives. Certainly when people understand the Right-Action
Ethic, that is an advantage. But it is a natural advantage that
is available to all, and one that disadvantages nobody.
An interesting and unnoticed fact about the law of abso-
lute right is that, without their awareness, people are con-
trolled by it in the same way they are controlled by all natu-
ral laws. Long before any of the laws of physics were dis-
covered and named, their control existed.
The same is true of the behavioral law. No matter how
people try to evade or deny the law, there are only two pos-
sible results they can get from the action they take: the ac-
tion succeeds or it fails. Consider how many things are fail-
ing within family relationships, with school and university
education, government projects, drug programs for teens,
mothers on welfare, medical solutions for heart disease,
cancer and obesity or the increasing number of suicides
among young people.
Those failures are not for lack of trying to succeed by
people who are concerned. It is people’s personal motiva-

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tion to get credit, make money or to be “the person who”
that causes their efforts to fail. Personal motives divert their
attention unknowingly from what they think they are doing
such as to find a solution for some serious problem—
balancing the budget, for example. It is the relative system
of personal motives that is at fault. If people want to get
right results, their motivation has to change to meet the re-
quirements of the behavioral law.
The law states that right action gets right results,
whereas wrong action gets wrong results. Wetherill defined
right action as action that works because it is logical, ap-
propriate and moral. Right action resolves difficulties; it
does not perpetuate nor cause further difficulties. Rather,
right action solves problems and prevents trouble.
Since so many results are weighted toward the failure
side of the law, people have seen very few results of the
success side. Those successes exist, but only a relatively
few people know how they are induced. Readers are en-
couraged to accumulate their own examples by applying
the Right-Action Ethic to their lives. At present, members
of the Humanetics Fellowship account for the majority of
the natural successes, and some of them will be described
next.
Foremost, in most people’s minds, is the business we
founded in 1978. One of its purposes was to provide em-
ployment for members who had moved to the Philadelphia
area from other parts of the country. The more important
reason was to build a proper platform for supporting
Wetherill’s lifework to change society’s motivation in a
fundamentally different way.
Operating a business by applying the principles of right
action was somewhat baffling to us in the beginning, and
some mistakes were made that caused serious problems.

44
However, they were dealt with as we did our best to let the
reality control by responding to its needs. In so doing we
found a niche in the industry we had selected to service,
and by 1980, we were starting to get right results.
Sales volume in that year was nearly $1 million, and
each subsequent year to the present proved to be a record
year for sales. By 1995 sales volume had reached $131 mil-
lion, and our present sales volume indicates another record
year for 1996. The original employee community of 34 has
grown to 450. In addition to corporate headquarters, there
are four regional distribution centers strategically located
nationally to provide best service for several thousand cus-
tomers.
Strangely, the industry we service had its roots in the
junk yards prior to World War II, but it has developed into
a substantial, multibillion dollar industry serving the auto-
motive aftermarket. Our company started out as the “new
kids on the block,” and it is now the major full-line supplier
to the auto-electric rebuilding industry.
Over the past years, we continue to learn how to reason
from reality as a management style and to seek consensus
with reality in the decision-making process. People are fa-
miliar with consensus decisions based on the majority opin-
ion of people, but they are not accustomed to the decisions
based on consensus with the facts of reality.
On occasions it has appeared to others that our officers
were wishy-washy and indecisive about decisions any ex-
ecutive should make on the spot. When people are guided
by the impersonal motivation of natural law, no person is
willing to try to control what action is taken until the deci-
sion is found in the reality. It requires time to gather the
facts so that mistakes can be avoided.

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 We continue to learn in our business lives as well as our
private lives that surrendering decision making to the dic-
tates of reality is what succeeds. In its great wisdom, reality
provides answers that satisfy the needs of successful busi-
ness ventures as well as the needs of the ordinary activities
of daily life.
There is no motive to make money from our business
activities, but we do get a right result financially. Our mo-
tive is to think, say and do what is right for the corporation,
our employees, customers, suppliers, consultants, competi-
tors, the community and everybody we meet.
In another area of right results, members of the Fellow-
ship arranged for the construction of a 36-unit apartment
house. There was none of the usual hassle you read about
when joint ventures of that kind are undertaken. A commit-
tee of three met with the architect and builder to arrive at
proper decisions for the apartment layouts, type of con-
struction, materials used and so on. At no time was there
any difficulty among members of the committee or the pro-
spective tenants, and the project turned out to be an award-
winning building for the architect and the construction
company.
The relationships among the residents show the benefits
and desirability of dropping personal motives in order to
adopt the impersonal motivation of the law of behavior. It
is our intent to think, say and do what is right, and that has
eliminated the former bickering and hurt feelings that were
commonplace when we reasoned in the relative system.
Because right action is fully able to succeed, it does.
The results provide a natural “high” from which there is no
letdown as long as a person’s attention stays focused on
reality.

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 The change of motivation is made initially by a per-
son’s conscious decision to change. But then there are
times when the intent to think, say and do what is right
doesn’t come to mind until an unwanted, wrong result de-
velops. So it takes practice until it becomes habitual to
think, say and do what is right.
Every great musician, performer or athlete spends hours
and hours practicing until the action of that endeavor is per-
fected and becomes habitual. Then when the daily practice
is interrupted for any reason, the ability to continue on that
high level of performance is lost.
When enough practice time is given to the Right-Action
Ethic so that conforming with absolute right is habitual, the
ability to think, say and do what is right is never lost. Peo-
ple who have made the change to impersonal motivation
testify that they would never want to go back to the way it
used to be. In fact, they are somewhat aghast to remember
their former selfish, emotional attitudes and nasty, wrong
behavior.
Wetherill made it clear that people who change to the
absolute system of reasoning need not waste their time on
thoughts of guilt and remorse for past behavior. He used to
say, “The person who did those things doesn’t live here
anymore.” That is the amnesty given to people who voli-
tionally choose to stop trying to get their way, who choose
to be right and not go wrong.
When everybody adopts the impersonal motivation of
the natural law of right behavior, society will embark on a
fundamentally different way of life.

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About Richard W Wetherill
Richard W. Wetherill was born in Old Bridge, New Jer-
sey on August 3, 1906, the son of Richard Wayne Wether-
ill, a civil engineer, and Mary Roberts Wetherill, a school-
teacher. From 1912 to 1928 he attended public schools in
the Philadelphia area, and Antioch College in Ohio.
At the age of 23, he embarked on a teaching career and
began giving evening classes on Public Speaking and Crea-
tive Thinking at the Poor Richard Club in Philadelphia and
at YMCA’s in Atlantic City, Trenton, Chester and Phila-
delphia. Early on he was committed to a business life that
was to be marked by the highest ethical principles. From
1929 to 1940, he continued his motivational management
classes within the business and professional communities in
and around the Delaware Valley.
In 1928 he married a local Philadelphia girl, Lou B.
Davis. They were together for 61 years until his death in
1989. They had no children.
From 1941 to 1945 he worked for the Edward G. Budd
Manufacturing Company while simultaneously publishing
his newsletter, The Creative Thinker, Volumes 1 and 2
which was issued in 1941 and 1942 until the paper shortage
of World War II forced its interruption.
While at the Budd Company, Mr. Wetherill became
their Training Executive and introduced the Wetherill
Management Seminar that he had developed in the 1930’s.
During his years with Budd, he compiled and wrote the
first comprehensive book on foremanship under the title,
Management Techniques for Foremen, along with a
Leader’s Guide for teaching foremen the principles out-

48
lined in the Foremanship book. The books were published
by National Foremen’s Institute in 1945. National Fore-
men’s Institute also published other material by Wetherill
on how to train assistants and similar management topics.
In 1946, Mr. Wetherill resigned from the Budd com-
pany and became a management consultant so that he could
work with smaller corporations and help them grow—
which they all did.
For the next 13 years the Weidemann Machine Com-
pany used his consulting services, during which time the
company grew steadily. During his career as a management
consultant, he also wrote three books under the general ti-
tle, The Dynamics of Human Relations. Each was a “how
to” book: How To Succeed with People, How To Get Your
Ideas Across, and How To Get Leadership and Influence.
The three books were published on the same day in 1949
by D. Van Nostrand Co., New York and Toronto. They
were placed in U.S. Military Libraries all over the world.
In January 1952 Wetherill published the first book out-
lining his behavioral study which he called humanetics.
The book was titled Tower of Babel, and later in the year,
his second book on humanetics, Truth Is Power, was pub-
lished. The Right-Action Ethic grew out of the humanetics
study.
In 1954, Mr. Wetherill delivered a number of lectures
on management principles for the Cadillac Motor Car Divi-
sion of General Motors Corporation, and in 1958, he con-
ducted a weeklong series of lectures for the Plant Manage-
ment Training Division of the General Motors Institute in
Flint, Michigan.
In 1958, Mr. Wetherill retired from his career as man-
agement consultant to devote himself full time to a growing

49
number of people studying the Right-Action Ethic, who
were enriching their lives with their study.
In 1959 he resumed publication of The Creative
Thinker, and by 1981, he had published Volumes 3 through
21 as well as a score of books for use by members of the
Behavioral Study Group.
In 1978, 34 of his trainees formed the company,
Wetherill Associates, Inc. (WAI), and until his death in
1989, he continued to meet with them and present training
in the Right-Action Ethic for management and leadership in
business and in private life.

50
 Books By Richard W. Wetherill
Management Techniques for Foremen. Leader’s
Guide
Connecticut: National Foremen’s Institute, 1946.
The Dynamics of Human Relations. 3 Volumes.
“How To Succeed with People.”
“How To Put Your Ideas Across.”
“How To Get Leadership and Influence.”
New York: D. Van Nostrand Company, Inc., 1949.
Towers of Babel
Wynnewood, PA: 1952.
Truth is Power
Wynnewood, PA: 1952.

The following books are available exclusively from

The Alpha Publishing House
PO Box 255
Royersford, PA 19468
1-800-992-9124

Right Is Might
Royersford, PA: Humanetics Fellowship, 1991.
How To Solve Problems and Prevent Trouble
Royersford, PA: Humanetics Fellowship, 1991.
Dictionary of Typical Command Phrases
Royersford, PA: Humanetics Fellowship, 1992.
Suppose We Let Civilization Begin
Royersford, PA: Humanetics Fellowship, 1991.
Leadership into the 21st Century
Royersford, PA: The Alpha Publishing House, 1992.

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